We have so much choice over what we eat today because rural communities the world over have had their choices taken away. To understand how our supermarket shopping makes us complicit in a system that routinely denies freedom to the world's poorest, and how we ourselves are poisoned by these choices, we need to think about the way our food comes to us. "Stuffed and Starved" takes a long and wide view of food production, to show how we all suffer the consequences of a food system cooked to a corporate recipe. This is also the story of the fight against the unthinking commerce that brings it to us. In the wrecked paddy fields of India, in the soy deserts of Brazil, in the maize ejidos of Mexico, the supermarket aisles of California, French McDonald's and Italian kitchens, there's a worldwide resistance against unhealthy control of the food system.
Stuffed And Starved
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Review
'***** With the origins and politics of food such a hot topic at the moment, Patel ensures you are well informed'
-- Birmingham Mail
'Patel's anecdotes illustrate a careful argument... His plea is for a healthier world [and] one that is more just.'
-- Guardian
`Ambitious assessment of the true cost of the global food market - social, environmental, political and, above all, human' -- Daily Mail
-- Birmingham Mail
'Patel's anecdotes illustrate a careful argument... His plea is for a healthier world [and] one that is more just.'
-- Guardian
`Ambitious assessment of the true cost of the global food market - social, environmental, political and, above all, human' -- Daily Mail
About the Author
RAJ PATEL was educated at Oxford, the LSE, and Cornell. A former fellow at Yale and Berkeley, he is now at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has worked for the World Bank, interned at the WTO, consulted for the UN, and been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against his former employers. He is one of only a few activists trusted to work with the Via Campesina peasant movement. This is his first book. www.stuffedandstarved.org
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
50 of 52 people found the following review helpful
By bookfan
Format:Hardcover
I searched hard for this book because I couldn't wait for it to come out in the USA. Normally when I work that hard to find a book, it doesn't live up to my expectations. S&S exceeded my wildest hopes for astonishment. Patel's radical hypothesis is that 1 billion starving and 1 billion fat is inevitable to the market logic of capitalism where a small number of corporations control the entire food growing, distribution, and selling network. Poor people are squeezed for every hour of labor, and rich countries are squeezed for every dollar they will spend, leading to an efficient system that runs poor farmers to the edge of starvation, and markets high-fat, cheaply made, poisoned food to the rest of us. Patel marshals an extraordinary range of evidence to show how this works at every level, and where the soft underbelly of this system is susceptible to positive change by grass roots movements. This would make an excellent documentary TV series. Much more enlightening than the other books I've read on this subject. I come away convinced that the greatest moral choice I can make is not how I vote or what I drive, but what I chose to eat.
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
By Red Reader
Format:Hardcover
Having read some of Patel's very highly regarded journalism and academic work in South Africa I ordered this book with high expectations. I wasn't disappointed. This book is exceptionally well written and an absolute pleasure to read. But, more importantly, is is one of the very few of the popular anti-globalizations books written from the global South - this book is genuinely internationalist. That's a very welcome relief.
It also brings together a dazzling range of facts and stories, perhaps a little bit like Mike Davis in its sometimes just plain awesome ambitions and scope.
And the actual content of its analysis, the politics of the global food system, is undertaken brilliantly. As far as I know this is the first serious internationalist critique of the global food system and its devastating. But its not just bleak - the stories of resistance are inspiring. It seems that this book will become something like the 'No Logo' for a new generation of activists and critical thinkers. I certainly hope so.
Qina!
It also brings together a dazzling range of facts and stories, perhaps a little bit like Mike Davis in its sometimes just plain awesome ambitions and scope.
And the actual content of its analysis, the politics of the global food system, is undertaken brilliantly. As far as I know this is the first serious internationalist critique of the global food system and its devastating. But its not just bleak - the stories of resistance are inspiring. It seems that this book will become something like the 'No Logo' for a new generation of activists and critical thinkers. I certainly hope so.
Qina!
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
By Marie G.
Format:Hardcover
I've found this book amazing. I've read it, and read it again, and got it for the Christmas socks of those who are willing to see beyond the shelves of the supermarkets. If you are a supermarket customer, if you have an opinion on GM crops, whatever this opinion is, if you would like to know more about what you eat and drink, where it comes from and why you eat and drink it, then this book is definitely for you!
Extremely well documented, this is a life-changing experience. I can't wait for the next one. Good on you Raj!
Extremely well documented, this is a life-changing experience. I can't wait for the next one. Good on you Raj!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shocking discussion, but something we need to think about
Patel's dense discussion of the world food system has a number of key points that I think are really important to understanding the problem. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Kate
3.0 out of 5 stars
Shocking and horrifying, few solutions
I enjoyed this book to a degree. The author uses a writing style that builds suspense by hinting at information to come. Read more
Published 3 months ago by HJ Haugland
3.0 out of 5 stars
Is Raj Patel the Anti-Christ?
The author of this book, Raj Patel, is a left-liberal author from London. Nothing out of the ordinary, except a couple of best-selling books. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Ashtar Command
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking
Excellent stuff cogent well argued I am using my local markets and producers and have not been in any of the big four in the last couple of months or any fast food chains either... Read more
Published 8 months ago by farmers marketman
5.0 out of 5 stars
quick service, good quality
For me, Raj Patel is one of the greatest food-issues writers around because of the way he combines top-notch research with a patent personal investment in the justice issues at... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Leah M. Ashe
5.0 out of 5 stars
food ethics and the environment
This is a brilliant book...details how the food corps direct and manipulate the systems they have set up in order to control prices,distribution and choice and have a direct impact... Read more
Published on 4 May 2010 by Ms. M. Melvin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant
I have just finished this remarkable book, and will never be able to look at a supermarket in the same way. Read more
Published on 30 April 2010 by Alphamikecharlie
4.0 out of 5 stars
new point of view
it's a very sourprising reading about the world food system and a new way of understanding it. very recommendable. well argumented.
Published on 19 Dec 2009 by Rodi
4.0 out of 5 stars
Back down to Earth
Everytime someone shoves me in the frozen food aisle at Sainsbury's, or I see a picture Gordon Brown smiling, or another 200 or 2000 troops get sent to Iraq - I think, "Screw it! Read more
Published on 19 Jun 2008 by sookilee
5.0 out of 5 stars
Timely, wide-reaching and a real wake-up call
Excellent. A must read. Anyone who is interested in what they eat, where it comes from, and how it reaches us should read this book. And be very worried.
Published on 22 April 2008 by T. Dixon
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